Equity Crowdfunding Provides Colleges and Universities with Easy Access to Early Stage, Seed Round Investment Capital

How Colleges / Universities Can Provide Easy Access to Seed Investment Capital with Equity Crowdfunding Platforms

By Robert Hoskins

Providing Easy Access to Investment Capital 

Providing easy access to seed investment capital is a great way to encourage the creative thinking of young innovators. When money is hard to get, there isn’t much point in trying to be creative. But when students realize that there is a better than average chance of putting together a good business plan and actually being able to raise money to fund their ingenious ideas, Equity crowdfunding will serve as the catalyst that stimulates economic development.

The payoff for students, faculty and universities can be tremendous. It only takes a couple of home run investments to generate a billion dollars in revenue when one of their startups is purchased or takes their company public.  

If you look at the current crop of Angel investors, the large majority got their start by working for a company that went public. Once entrepreneurs strike it rich, they want more.  They don’t cash out and retire.  They reinvest the $10 million they earned into a new pool of startups to help them achieve the same success.  This is what most people mean by mentors.

Successful entrepreneurs love to share their success stories with the next generation. The most important step is to create the first wave of entrepreneurs even if it means a small town in nowhere Texas has to pay Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists from California and New York for their consulting services to get the ball rolling.  All it takes is a small college, smart professors, a few successful investors, a Rewards or Equity-based crowdfunding platform and a team of marketing experts that understand advertising, email marketing, PR and social media.

One company that creates a 1,000 millionaires has the capability to investment up to a billion dollars back into the next round of startups. This is precisely how Silicon Valley was built. For colleges/universities that decide to add an Equity-based Crowdfunding ecosystem, it has the potential to start a huge investment domino effect that will result in a wide-spread, long-term return-on-investment for universities, its faculty, their students and the community around them.

Learn more about crowdfunding:

• Building a Rewards-based and/or Equity-based Crowdfunding Ecosystem;
• Providing Easy Access to Seed Investment Capital with Crowdfunding;
• Generating More Revenue to Support Co-Working Spaces and Startups;
• Using Equity Crowdfunding Sites to Finance Incubators and Accelerators;
• Taking Advantage of Investor Syndicates that are Seeking Better Deal Flow;
• Splitting Revenue from Incubator and Accelerator Mentors Consulting Fees;
• Streamlining Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs);
• Cross-Pollinating College Education with Real World Startups; and
• Learning to Build Better Alumni and Local Community Relationships

 

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FlashFunders Launches Leading No Fee Equity Crowdfunding Site to Fund Startups in the United States

No-Fee Platform Helps Connect Accredited Investors to Innovative Entrepreneurs, Startups and Businesses Seeking Investment Capital

By Robert Hoskins

Santa Monica, California – FlashFunders announced the launch of its no-fee, online equity funding platform at www.flashfunders.com.  FlashFunders (member FINRA/SIPC) was started by Europlay Capital Advisors, law firm Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, and co-founders Vincent Bradley and Brian Park, and was formed to help startups raise capital efficiently while also opening up access to startup investing for accredited investors.

Vincent Bradley, the co-founder and CEO of FlashFunders, tells us more about equity crowdfunding

FlashFunders’ platform helps entrepreneurs navigate complex SEC regulations and offsets costly legal fees, while giving accredited investors unprecedented access to startup investment opportunities. FlashFunders provides a turnkey solution for raising capital and a marketplace where entrepreneurs can connect directly with accredited investors across the globe.

FlashFunders ensures all investors are accredited and that all offerings are SEC-compliant and executed using FDIC-insured escrows — which are created and paid for by FlashFunders.

“We worked with FINRA over the past year to expand the scope of our broker-dealer license, allowing FlashFunders to operate an online equity funding platform in a regulated environment,” said Vincent Bradley, the co-founder of FlashFunders. “We felt it was critical to ensure our platform was compliant for both startups and investors. Online equity funding is in its infancy and seeing tremendous growth; by engaging with FINRA, we’re leading the way for how it should be done — creating an industry standard.”

“Approximately 97% of the 8.5 million accredited investors in the United States currently don’t partake in startup investing,” said Mark Dyne, the chairman and founder of Europlay, a seed and early-stage investor in technology companies, as well as former Skype seed investor and board member and founder and CEO of Sega Ozisoft, Virgin Interactive Entertainment, and many others. “This is largely because they don’t have access to early stage companies. Leveraging technology and decades of combined experience in finance, venture investing, securities law and startup operations, FlashFunders provides entrepreneurs and investors a secure, SEC-compliant user experience, with e-Signature technology and document management capabilities backed by a team of FINRA-registered representatives to help ensure successful offerings on the platform.”

“FlashFunders is designed to fundamentally alter the capital-raising process,” said Brian Park, co-founder of FlashFunders. “We provide startups with a compliant, efficient and no-fee online equity funding platform to develop their business plans, publicly market their offerings and collect funding from accredited investors —saving startups thousands of dollars in legal fees. At the same time, investors on FlashFunders can purchase shares directly in startups with no transaction fees or carried interest charges.

FlashFunders creates a safe and intuitive process that allows investors to view startup offerings and execute investments legally and properly in minutes using Flash Seed Preferred documents and e-Signature technology.

FlashFunders has created “Flash Seed Preferred,” a set of safe, balanced and transparent investment documents that have been customized to facilitate fundraising on the platform, further streamlining a process that would otherwise take months of road shows, multiple middlemen and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to execute.

“Unlike other equity funding portals, FlashFunders does not curate or try to pick winners, and investments are not made through LLCs or Special Purpose Vehicles,” said Scott Alderton, Managing Partner at Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP. “FlashFunders provides a seamless end-to-end solution for startups raising capital with virtually no external cost, fees or investor carry. FlashFunders receives an ongoing right to invest a limited amount under the same terms as all other investors if a startup is successful in getting funded on the platform.” Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP is one of southern California’s leading business law firms, with deep experience in providing legal services to companies including LinkedIn, Beats by Dre and Skype, among many others.

The announcement is the first phase of FlashFunders’ rollout. Additional enhancements to the user experience will be added over time along with new tools and technologies to increase functionality and scale. Offerings from startups will be incrementally uploaded by the site’s concierge service, which assigns a live team to guide entrepreneurs through the process.

“We are educating a new generation of investors and building a more efficient roadshow for startups,” said Vincent Bradley.

A registered broker-dealer, member FINRA/SIPC, FlashFunders provides a no-fee online equity funding platform for entrepreneurs to publicly market their offerings, collect funding from accredited investors and gain access to SEC-compliant legal documents and escrow accounts to create their offerings.

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Front Page PR Seeks Startups at Texas Incubators Accelerators that Would Like to Try a New Method of Raising Seed Investment Capital via Texas Equity Crowdfunding Sites

Equity crowdfunding campaigns have the ability to help entrepreneurs raise enough seed capital to pay for a co-working space and put together marketing and business development plans to gain market traction

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – Front Page PR, in tandem with the Texas Crowdfunding Network, is now offering entrepreneurs, startups and businesses in Texas the opportunity to learn how to use top Texas crowdfunding sites to raise enough seed investment capital to get their companies up and running. Anyone interested in a free 30-minute crowdfunding consulting session to learn more about crowdfunding should call Robert Hoskins at (512) 627-6622 or send a tweet to @Crowdfunding_PR.

Front Page PR Helps Startups and Small Businesses Plan Successful Texas Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns

“Various Texas incubators and accelerators offer attractive deals that promise to provide $50,000 of matching funds and another $50,000 from venture capital partners for any company as long as they can bring their own $50,000 to the table,” said Robert Hoskins, the Texas Crowdfunding Network’s Executive Director. “The problem is that most startups are bootstrapping their companies and do not have enough money to qualify for these types of expensive cash-up-front accelerator programs.”

“Even though incubators/accelerators have the best intentions of helping startups,” Hoskins added. “There are simply too many startups and not enough seed investment capital to go around. According to a leading Austin Accelerator Research Report even the top Texas accelerators rarely invest more than a total of $150,000 per year in startups. At $50k per deal that means only enough funding for three companies per year.”

Recognizing this widespread problem, the Texas State Securities Board created a new source of alternative financing called “Equity Crowdfunding” that provides businesses, including Texas incubators and accelerators, with a new way to raise enough seed investment capital to fund more companies, create more jobs and stimulate more economic development in Texas.

Equity crowdfunding sites now allow businesses to build an online business pitch called a “crowdfunding profile,” which can be viewed by prospective investors 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week. Investors that like deals they find can purchase equity shares via online Texas crowdfunding sites in a similar manner to how Kickstarter and IndieGoGo or ecommerce sites work.

It is completely free to build a crowdfunding profile. And spending as little as $5,000 to $20,000 to produce the necessary pitch deck/video, disclosure documentation and targeted marketing campaigns to drive investors to crowdfunding profiles makes it possible for any Texas business raise up to $1,000,000 of seed investment capital per year.

Every adult in Texas can now invest up to $5,000 per year in equity investment deals they like. At $5,000 each, a small business only needs 200 investors to raise up to $1 million per year. Marketing campaigns with an average 3% response rate have the potential to drive up to 600,000 Texas investors to a company’s crowdfunding profile. And then, it only takes a very small conversion rate of those investors investing anywhere from $500 to $5,000 each to reach the desired crowdfunding goal.

When trying to raise seed capital most angel investors like to see some sort of traction in the marketplace. Smart companies will only try to raise enough money to deliver a finished product/service that can be sold as well as some marketing programs to begin customer acquisition.

After a successful first round, companies that spend their money wisely and build a solid customer base will be able to raise larger secondary and tertiary rounds as they gain momentum in the marketplace.

“Raising multiple rounds of funding to stair step their way into a successful business model is a good strategy to develop a loyal base of customers and crowdfunding investors,” Hoskins commented. “It is also a great way catch the eye of angel investors and venture capitalists who will be watching Texas Crowdfunding sites for rising stars that are still at an early stage, but growing quickly.”

Front Page PR has a 25-year track record of helping small startups launch their businesses and begin rolling out their products and services to local, regional, national and global markets. Using integrated marketing campaigns that harness the power of targeted content marketing, email marketing, PR and social media, Front Page PR can help any small business build a loyal customer base and begin preparing for a successful equity crowdfunding campaign. Front Page PR offers up to a 50% discount on various marketing services for qualified members of Texas-based co-working spaces, incubators and accelerator programs.

If your business would like to learn more about the Texas Equity Crowdfunding industry, please join our free Texas Crowdfunding Network Meetup Group or visit our Texas Equity Crowdfunding Blog to read more about how to setup a Texas Crowdfunding Portal or Issue a Texas Equity Crowdfunding Offering. We can also help setup Equity Crowdfunding Community Outreach Programs and Crowdfunding Training Programs to educate members of chambers of commerce, SBDC offices, economic development councils and large business associations on how to capitalize on equity crowdfunding to fund startups that need access to seed investment capital. 

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Contact:
Robert Hoskins
Front Page PR
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR
www.linkedin.com/in/roberthoskins